


The Silent Heart

by Elapid



Series: The Ties That Bind [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood and Violence, Doctors & Physicians, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Germany, Historical Reenactment, Hospitalization, Human/Vampire Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Hypnotism, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Injury Recovery, Knights - Freeform, Love, M/M, Medical Professionals, Medical Trauma, Memory Alteration, Men Crying, Mind Manipulation, Near Future, Past Violence, Rivalry, Slow Romance, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28544940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elapid/pseuds/Elapid
Summary: Doctor Nicklaus Fleischer possesses abilities outside of his understanding and not entirely within his control. At work they are a sometimes a life-saving blessing - elsewhere, he sees them largely as an overwhelming curse.Every four years the city holds a grand reenactment, and donning plate armor offers Nicklaus more than just physical protection for jousting and medieval combat.Over a million visitors attend the event over the course of a month, but one in particular keeps catching Nicklaus's eye, and his intrigue.The feeling is mutual, but this charming stranger is keeping secrets of his own, and the consequences for getting too close could prove to be fatal.
Relationships: Nicklaus Fleischer/Maurice Reynard
Series: The Ties That Bind [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091090
Kudos: 1





	The Silent Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Many feels. Such drama. Wow.
> 
> I feel like a sap, because I started getting teary-eyed toward the end and I was the one writing the damn thing. Then I was on the verge of just ugly crying, and Spotify decided to be super helpful by shuffling in 'Fix You'. Really, Spotify? Thanks.
> 
> Took me long enough to finish this, too. It wound up almost twice as long as I had originally intended, but things just wound up getting quite a bit more messy (in a good way, I hope) than I originally imagined they would be.
> 
> This is the second in a series I hope to have somewhere between 7-10 (relatively) short stories putting together the interconnections between an initially disparate group of characters.
> 
> It's not wholly necessary, but I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading 'The Uninvited Guest', first.
> 
> All included art was created by and belongs to me.

The Landshut Wedding was something that Nicklaus Fleischer always looked forward to. Once every four years, the event caused Landshut’s population of around seventy thousand to increase tenfold. People came from around the world to see one of the largest historical pageants in Europe – a reenactment of the late fifteenth century wedding between George of Bavaria and Hedwig Jagiellon, a Polish princess.

Nicklaus didn’t particularly care for the huge crowd and sat right up against his mother in the spectators’ stands as the wedding procession moved by. Nearly two thousand citizens from in and around Landshut participated, so, needless to say, the procession was impressively large. There were pikemen in formation, musicians, noblemen and women, jugglers, even the occasional beggar, and, of course, in an ornately decorated carriage, the bride-to-be.

All of this was very exciting, but what Nicklaus was most looking forward to seeing were the procession’s knights. He had a smile plastered on his face as soon as they finally came into view. Each rode a horse draped in barding and colorful banners, and each wore a suit of plate armor – sans helmet for the parade – with a bit of decorative garland attached for the festivities. The knights waved at the crowd as they rode by, including Nicklaus’s grandfather, astride a huge dapple gray Percheron draped in a red and gold banner with a stylized white wolf on it.

Nicklaus’s mother, Tilly, helped lift him up as he waved at Oswald, and the boy absolutely beamed when his grandfather spotted him, smiled, and waved back. After that, Nicklaus was content to sit back down in the stands and watch the rest of the parade go by.

Eventually, the massive procession ended, and the crowd of spectators began to disperse to food and beverage tents, as well as further events. Nicklaus didn’t see his mother reaching for him until it was too late, and gave a startled jerk when she took his hand.

Tilly frowned in concern at her son as she started leading him away from the stands and into the side streets of the Old Town. “Nicklaus, are you all right?” The boy had always been a bit nervous, but, as of late he’d seemed downright jumpy.

“I’m fine, mom,” Nicklaus quickly replied, managing to force a small smile. He could tell his mother didn’t buy it, but was relieved that, for the moment at least, she seemed to let it go. She didn’t, however, let his hand go, which meant that Nicklaus continued to see – continued to feel – well… her…

Nicklaus had looked through his grandfather’s old anatomy textbooks from med school many times with great fascination. It was sort of like that, but alive; heart beating, lungs breathing, muscles and bones moving. It was somewhat faint, but most definitely there in his mind’s eye, even though he wasn’t looking directly at his mother. No, his attention was on the crowd they were wending through, Nicklaus desperately trying to prevent making skin contact with anyone else. Moving through such a dense group of people, though, he was bound to bump into someone. The temperature was nice, and Nicklaus was wearing short sleeves, which didn’t help matters.

It finally happened, too – a man with his right arm in a sling unknowingly brushed his left hand against the boy’s arm. The contact was brief, and in that brief contact Nicklaus could ‘see’ the small fracture in the stranger’s right ulna. For an instant, he felt a dull ache in his own right forearm. He quickly broke contact, pulling in closer to Tilly, practically glued to her side as they continued to work their way down the stone-paved streets of the Old Town. Nicklaus only relaxed when they’d gotten far enough away from the central events that the crowd had winnowed down to essentially nothing.

Nicklaus breathed an audible sigh of relief when they reached his grandfather on a side street. Oswald was still wearing his plate armor. He had already stowed the barding and banners in the front compartment of the horse trailer, and the huge gray mare didn’t need much encouragement to load into the back. Only once the rear door was closed and latched did Oswald start removing his own armor, setting it all on a special stand in the front of the trailer.

It was the last day of the festival, but Oswald was packing up and heading home a bit sooner than the other ‘knights’. Nicklaus had rather enthusiastically expressed his desire to see him compete in the Games of Riders and Knights at the Wiesmahd. His grandfather had given him an indulgent smile and a little chuckle as he’d admitted to being, “Too old for jousting, anymore.”

“Oswald?” Tilly said as they approached, quickly getting the man’s attention. “Would you mind taking Nicklaus home with you? I need to help Adam pack up at the beer tent, and it’s probably going to take a while.”

“Of course,” Oswald nodded, giving the two a warm smile. His expression quickly faded a little. “Oh, please remind him to lift the kegs with his knees not his back, for God’s sake.”

Nicklaus only vaguely remembered that incident from the event four years previous. His father had hurt his back somehow and had barely been able to do any work around the farm for days. Adam hadn’t been terribly happy about that.

Tilly chuckled faintly. “Don’t want a repeat of last time. I’ll make sure he doesn’t forget.” She pulled her son in for a hug, kneeling down briefly to press a quick kiss to his forehead. “Be good for your grandfather, all right?”

Nicklaus nodded. “I will.” He hated to admit that he felt some small relief when his mother let his hand go. That intrusive, living, breathing, moving image instantly evaporated from his mind’s eye.

…then, his grandfather was extending a hand to him.

Nicklaus stared at the offered hand as though it might bite him, finally gazing upward to see the now worried look on Oswald’s face. “I can get in the truck, myself,” Nicklaus insisted, quickly walking to the passenger side of the vehicle. He was short, though, even for an eleven-year-old, and only just managed to reach the big truck’s door handle. After a bit of a struggle he opened the door and climbed up into the truck, closing the door behind before fastening his seatbelt.

Oswald’s face had gone from simply worried to a bit pensive as well as he took a seat on the driver’s side. He started the truck, and carefully worked his way out of the network of small side roads he had parked in.

Things were uncomfortably quiet on the drive. Oswald finally broke the silence after they had left the boundaries of Landshut and pulled onto a country road. “Nicklaus, you know you can always talk to me, right?” His voice was warm and gentle, but held the same edge of concern that likewise showed on his face. “Did something happen?”

Nicklaus looked at his grandfather for a moment before looking straight ahead. Part of him silently cursed his seatbelt, because he really just wanted to curl up on himself and disappear. “I wish I had armor like yours,” he finally said.

“Oh? Why’s that?” With a typical young boy, Oswald would have suspected they just thought the plate armor looked ‘cool’, or they had some fantasy of valiantly defeating foes in battle. That just didn’t seem to fit his grandson, though – especially with the way the boy stared straight ahead, a distant, somber look on his face.

Nicklaus didn’t say anything at first. He loved his grandfather dearly. The man was always willing to talk with or listen to him. Nicklaus didn’t want to lie to him, but if he told him the truth, even his grandfather might think he was going crazy.

…maybe he was…

“So nobody could touch me,” Nicklaus finally said. “Not even on accident. It wouldn’t matter if someone bumped into me, or held my hand, or hugged me…” He trailed off.

Now there was a touch of added expression on Oswald’s face – suspicion. He knew his grandson was shy, and a bit withdrawn. Over the past couple of weeks, though, he’d worriedly watched the boy withdraw more, attempting to avoid even the touch of loved ones. “What has happened over the last few weeks that’s made it so you don’t want to touch anyone?”

Nicklaus rolled the question over in his head several times. He found no judgment in it, and the desperation to tell someone, anyone, about what was happening had become borderline unbearable. He swallowed back tears, afraid that if he started crying, he’d never stop. He couldn’t hold onto this secret any longer.

“When I touch someone, I can see them in my head… inside of them, I mean.” Nicklaus startled when his grandfather suddenly hit the brakes, the man’s eyes wide in what looked like shock, and more than just a hint of recognition.

Oswald was glad they were by themselves on the stretch of country road. He was also thankful that they were going fairly slow on the gravel, so the sudden change in speed was only enough to elicit a minor snort of irritation from the mare in the trailer. He let out a shaky exhale, himself, before turning to look to Nicklaus. “Is it clearer if your skin touches theirs?”

Nicklaus felt his heart skip a beat, whipping his head around to stare at his grandfather, mouth agape. He knew. _He knew_. Did the same thing happen to him, too? Nicklaus couldn’t manage to form coherent words, just giving a shaky nod.

“Seems it skipped a generation,” Oswald said with a weak smile, finally continuing down the gravel road. “It started happening to me, too, when I was about your age. It kept slowly getting stronger until I was an adult.”

Nicklaus looked mortified at the idea that these visions, these ‘echoes’, would continue to get worse. How could his grandfather possibly have tolerated it for so long?

“It takes time, but you start getting used to it,” Oswald stated simply.

“Should I…” Nicklaus trailed off for a moment, wondering if the answer to the question on his mind should already be obvious. “Should I tell anyone else?”

Oswald hesitated at that, seeming to think on the question for a good long while. He finally answered a few minutes later, as they were pulling in through the open gate into the estate. “My father turned out to have the same ability,” he said. “I told him and no one else. The Reich was still in power when I was a child, and they had people in their ranks, particularly within the Thule Society, who hunted for people with any sort of… ‘gifts’. Unfortunately, we had some distant relatives who sympathized with the party, which would have made revealing any such abilities even more risky.”

Nicklaus went silent again. If the Reich had been looking for people like he and his grandfather (and his great grandfather, apparently, as well), he could only imagine what they had in mind for any such ‘gifted’ they found: Recruitment? Imprisonment? Experimentation? The boy shuddered at the thought of that last one.

“The Reich is long gone, though.” Oswald turned the truck so he could start backing the trailer up to the stables. “But, it’s always possible that there are still groups that would have an equally unseemly interest in people with abilities like ours.” He offered a weak shrug. “Maybe not, though. I’m sorry, I wish I could just tell you ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Ultimately, it’s your decision – though I’d allow some time to think on it, if I were you. In the meantime, if you need to, you’re always welcome to speak with me,” Oswald said with a small, warm smile.

Now that the truck was stopped, Nicklaus practically flung his seatbelt off and out of the way so he could throw his arms around his grandfather. At the moment, he cared a lot less about what the contact prompted him to ‘see’ in his mind, and a lot more that his grandfather wrapped his arms around him in turn.

He cared that he finally felt safe.

He cared that he finally didn’t feel alone.

***

Nicklaus felt very alone. He knew he shouldn’t have – he was in a hospital filled with people he worked with almost every day. He didn’t turn his head so much as let it fall to one side so he was looking at the chairs and padded bench reserved for visitors. They were empty. His mother had left to get something to eat, and then his father had been called back to the estate. Adam hadn’t been happy about it – had tried to negotiate his way out – but apparently there was some kind of urgent emergency that couldn’t wait. Nicklaus didn’t remember the particulars of the conversation, just Adam apologizing profusely, and telling him his mother should be back within half an hour.

Nicklaus tilted his head again, and saw Oswald sitting in the chair next to his bed. The old man offered him a warm, encouraging smile. Nicklaus couldn’t help but give a small, weak smile in return. He was so tired, though, and, despite his best efforts, his eyes slid shut. He managed to force them open again. Surely no more than a moment had passed, but when Nicklaus looked to the chair once more his grandfather wasn’t there.

Nobody was there.

Nicklaus closed his eyes again. Where was Oswald? Why was he even _here_..?

There was a loud bang.

Nicklaus jumped, and whipped his head to one side to see a large spatter of blood (and thicker things) on the wall. Smoke still drifted from the short barrel of the revolver in his uncle’s hand. There was a kitchen knife in his own painfully tight grip, the blade freshly sharpened and shining clean. No - a mess. Red rivulets slid down along the sharpened edge of the blade, slowly forming droplets, seeming to hang at the tip of the knife for a moment before gaining enough volume to break free and fall away.

It was all over his hands.

It was all over his shirt.

Something pressed against Nicklaus’s lower back and sent pain lancing through him.

He screamed.

Or… he thought he did? He wasn’t sure. Everything was hazy and gray around the edges, rapidly fading away. Something lightly touched his forehead, and he managed to open his eyes a little.

Tilly was sitting in the chair next to the bed, gently brushing a few strands of hair out of her son’s face.

“What happened?” Nicklaus murmured, with no small amount of effort.

His mother quietly cleared her throat. “You, uh… tried to push one of the nurses away while he was tending the wound in your back…” She smiled faintly. “He’s fine, he was um… he actually said it’s good that you seem to be starting to get your strength back.”

Nicklaus frowned slightly, more than a little confused. “The wound in…” he trailed off. His frown deepened.

Doctor Sommer turned the tablet she was holding so that Nicklaus could see the screen. The image – or, the contents of the image, rather – was a mess: The body scan showed a not-quite-straight trail of soft tissue damage. Something had left a small, round puncture where it went through the skin of the lower right abdomen. The trail of damage started narrow, but quickly grew wider, and rougher, eventually culminating in an exit wound in the lower back that looked around six centimeters across at its widest point.

The increasing damage along the tumbling trajectory, along with the comparatively large, uneven, messy exit wound screamed ‘hollow point round’. Nicklaus had seen a small handful of gunshot wounds during his residency, but a through-and-through with a hollow point round? That only seemed likely if-

“Both were contact shots. The barrel was pressed right against the abdomen,” Doctor Sommer said with a little nod. “The perforating round scraped the inferior vena cava on its way out, just enough to cause a tear. There was significant blood loss, but, fortunately the tear was small enough that we got it closed quickly and fairly easily, which stopped most of the hemorrhaging. Silver lining to a relatively large exit wound, it gave us good access to work on the vena cava, and to remove the other round.”

Usually, surgeons simply left bullets in a patient’s body – trying to dig them out only resulted in more tissue damage. Nicklaus could see why the OR team had removed this one, though. The dense, fanned-out projectile was perilously close to the spine, where just the wrong movement by the patient could result in its jagged metal edges causing serious nerve damage.

“Whose sca-” Nicklaus coughed lightly, muttering a quiet apology. His mouth was dry, his throat was sore, he hurt almost everywhere, he felt light-headed, and moving or putting together a coherent thought was taking considerably more work than it should have. “Whose scans are these?” he finally managed to get out, only half registering how quiet and raspy his own voice was.

Doctor Sommer frowned. The expression was… well, it seemed different – just a little personal, maybe. It quickly shifted to an expression of concern that was no less genuine, but a bit more controlled. For Nicklaus it was the difference between the casual familiarity of chatting with colleagues and the more careful professionalism of talking with one’s patients.

“They’re your scans, Doctor Fleischer.”

Nicklaus felt his blood run cold. There was already a somewhat unhealthy pallor to his skin, but his face damn near went white. For just an instant he could see the messy red spatter on the wall.

“Opa’s dead…” he choked out, voice trembling, tears stinging at his eyes.

Doctor Sommer was gone, but someone touched his shoulder – Tilly. Nicklaus had grown so familiar with ‘seeing’, feeling, sensing her body’s ‘echo’; heart beating, lungs breathing, muscle fibers tensing and moving. When he was a child it had been jarring, and even a little frightening. He’d started to shy away from her touch – from _anyone’s_ touch. Now, it was almost a sort of comfort.

His mother slipped an arm around his shoulders, careful not to catch or dislodge any IV lines or monitor wires, and pulled him a little closer.

It took more exertion than it should have, but Nicklaus managed to close the rest of the distance, curling up against his mother. He couldn’t have stopped his collapse into ragged sobs if he’d had the strength to try. Oswald – his grandfather, his hero – was gone.

***

“I can’t believe Oswald went from being a knight to a squire for his goddamn grandkid. Fucking embarrassing.”

“Jesus Christ, Edmund, the man’s dead. And he was like sixty years old when he stopped fighting in the tournaments. Let it go.”

Nicklaus was standing upright, back straight, while his own ‘squire’, a young man from the city proper, helped him finish putting on his armor, making sure the laces, straps, and buckles were tight and secure so all of the plating fit properly. He tried not to tense up too much, but his clenched jaw didn’t go unnoticed.

“Why’d we have to wind up in a tent next to theirs? I’m not sure which is worse, their volume control, or _Sir Edmund’s_ swordplay. I bet they don’t even know you’re like ten feet away.”

The younger man tied the last lace tight before taking a step back. “Everything feel like it fits okay, Nick?”

It wasn’t something Nicklaus usually cared to be called, but his ‘squire’ was one of the few people he’d more than just tolerate it from. He tested the range of motion in his limbs, leaned forward, then back. Nothing pinched, nothing felt loose.

“Everything feels like it fits perfectly. Thanks, Kurt.” He offered a nod and a little smile, though the latter was slightly strained. Again, it didn’t go unnoticed.

“You could just stab him. I mean, you can one-hand a bastard sword, just use it to pry his gorget up, then run him through,” Kurt chuckled – all in good humor.

Okay, maybe Nicklaus smiled just a little bit. “You know that’d be violating my Hippocratic Oath, right? Besides, much as I hate to admit it, Edmund’s really good at parrying a sword. But, I’ve been practicing with something else, and it’s the last tournament day of this year’s festival, so, I decided to try something new.”

Kurt was practically fidgeting in anticipation, quickly running his fingers through his red hair as he watched his ‘knight’ reach into a large supply bag for something. “Ooh, what is it? Is it a flail? Tell me it’s a flail, I’ve wanted to see someone use one of those for ages.”

Nicklaus actually laughed slightly at that. “Flails are showy, but they’re not really practical.” He gripped the handle of that day’s weapon of choice and pulled it free from the bag: A meter long, reinforced steel pole with a hammer head fixed to one side of the business end and a long, curved spike jutting out in the opposite direction.

Kurt crossed his arms with an impressed whistle. “I uh… think he’s gonna have a harder time parrying that. What’s it weigh?”

Nicklaus flipped the weapon in his grip, offering the handle to Kurt, who was pulled down slightly when he was left holding the full weight of the hammer. “It’s about four kilos.” Nicklaus shrugged, putting on his helmet and fastening the chin strap. He pulled his visor up and open before reaching to put on his gauntlets and grab his shield. He took the hammer as well as Kurt offered it back to him. Now that he had the thick gauntlets between them, Nicklaus could no longer sense the younger man’s ‘echo’ when they touched. “A lot of the weight’s in the handle. I was practicing with wooden ones but they kept breaking, so I got the Schmidts to make me one with a steel handle.”

“You’re gonna put that spike right through his helmet, aren’t you?” Kurt arched a brow, and, given his expression and tone, it was a little hard to tell whether he was joking or not this time.

“God, no…” Nicklaus actually looked mildly horrified.

“Only kidding.” Kurt smiled. Ah – still joking. That was a relief. “You’re uh… gonna give him a really hard time, though, right?”

“God, yes.” Nicklaus heaved a shaky sigh, trying to release some of the pre-tournament jitters. He could hear the crowd of spectators cheering outside as the ceremony to begin the whole affair started. “All right, let’s go.”

Nicklaus could handle crowds and social interaction at work. Almost anywhere else, though? Forget it. There had been a gala the year before to celebrate the opening of a new wing at his hospital. Nicklaus had dressed up – had felt obligated to go – and spent the entire evening trying to stay off at the edge of the crowd and not be noticed.

There was something about wearing that custom-fitted, nicely decorated plate armor, though. The Landshut Wedding reenactment drew hundreds of thousands of visitors over the course of the month-long festival. Event organizers were estimating that they were on track to break one million this year.

This was Nicklaus’s third time participating. His first ride with the wedding procession had started off… well, he’d felt like a nervous wreck until the parade actually got underway. Maybe it was the armor (despite his helmet having been off – knights were expected to show their faces and play to the crowd during the procession), maybe it was the fact that he was only one of about twenty knights, which stretched the attention paid to him alone considerably thinner.

Most likely, though, was the fact that his grandfather had been in his own suit of armor, riding next to him. Oswald had been the one to encourage him to try going to the event as a participant, if only for one year.

Nicklaus had spent his childhood watching his grandfather participate in the festival. He idolized the man, and yet somehow didn’t feel unduly pressured. He still remembered putting on his freshly finished armor for the first time at the Schmidts’ workshop. Everything had fit perfectly, of course.

His grandfather had looked him up and down, appraising the style and fit of the armor. “You’re barely going to be able to keep the ladies away.”

Nicklaus had wished his visor was down, so his grandfather couldn’t see how flustered that comment had made him.

“Maybe some of the lads, too.” Oswald’s voice was considerably lower, and he’d given a cheeky little smile and a wink. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Tilly and Adam already figured it out, we just want you to be happy. Either way, the armor looks good on you.”

‘Sir’ Edmund would have been quite handsome… if he wasn’t such a self-aggrandizing asshole.

Nicklaus had handily defeated his first opponent, as Edmund had his own. Now the two were facing each other from across the small field that served as an arena, going through all the little pre-match niceties. Nicklaus could see the all-too-familiar smug little smirk on Edmund’s insufferable face. His attention, however, was briefly drawn to someone behind his opponent, at the very front of the spectator stands.

He’d seen the same photographer at the procession that morning; a long-legged, dark-haired man, smartly dressed, with very nice camera gear – probably taking pictures for some publication.

The weather had been sunny and bright for the morning’s wedding procession, so the man’s sunglasses hadn’t seemed out of place.

It had since grown overcast, and the round-rimmed sunglasses were still on, complete with side shields and what looked like black-out dark lenses.

Nicklaus’s attention was quickly back on his opponent. Edmund had managed to parry his sword right out of his hand during their first tournament match. It had been a quick and, honestly, rather humiliating defeat. Oswald had tried to console him – Edmund was much more experienced. It had still stung.

Nicklaus had simply wanted to defeat Edmund, before. Now a part of him wanted to pound on the smug, callous prick until the joints in his plate armor didn’t bend right. The thought lingered uncomfortably long before Nicklaus managed to push it away. Yes, the combat was, for the most part, ‘full contact’, but rules were to be followed, and appropriate restraint exercised, to prevent any serious injuries.

The two men lowered their visors, and practically charged one another to close the distance between them. Nicklaus was significantly taller and more built than his opponent, so momentum was squarely on his side. Nicklaus was hardly clumsy, either, but the distant center of gravity on the hammer made it much more difficult to stop or change direction once it was in motion, just letting Edmund duck under the swing, and land a blow with the edge of his sword to the backs of the younger man’s knees.

The hit was jarring enough that Nicklaus’s left leg buckled, his knee hitting the ground. He was quickly back up on his feet, though – just in time to block a second blow with the handle of his hammer, a loud clang ringing out as steel struck steel.

“You’re going to dull your blade,” Nicklaus said, his tone carefully controlled, even courteous, not that the crowd would hear it.

“You let me worry about that, fa-” Edmund was cut off mid-syllable as Nicklaus put his considerable weight into a shield bash. Edmund stumbled backward, arms flailing some, and he just managed to catch his balance before he could topple over. Some distance had been put back between them.

Edmund just managed to raise his shield in time to block a hammer blow, the impact causing him to stumble back a little once more, though not nearly as much as before.

Nicklaus had to be careful with his aim, and how much force he put into each swing. A bastard sword (or most other blades, really) would mostly glance off of plate armor – it’s what the structure of plate armor was for. War hammers were created specifically as a counter to plate armor. A well-aimed swing would send a great deal of impact force straight through the armor and into its wearer, with considerable potential for fatal results.

After a couple of minutes, Nicklaus had managed to put a few visible divots in his opponent’s pauldrons, where various metal plates overlapped. He’d certainly have some bruises, but nothing severe or permanent.

Edmund, on the other hand, seemed to be growing frustrated, and impatient. He consistently tried aiming swings at the slightly less protected insides of his opponent’s elbows and knees, only to be blocked almost every time.

Frustration turned into anger. A precisely aimed stab thrust the tip of his sword into the sight of the other man’s helmet. There was an audible gasp from the crowd…

…and from Nicklaus. The blade had tightly wedged in his helmet’s sight, Edmund trying and failing to pull it free while the sharp point hovered a couple of centimeters from Nicklaus’s face. He seized on the opportunity, swinging his hammer down to strike the sword near its guard. The tip of the sword broke, leaving a few centimeters of steel wedged in Nicklaus’s helmet.

He had to move fast, before Edmund could recover. Nicklaus slammed him with his shield again before he could raise his weapon, knocking him a little off-balance. He quickly turned the hammer in his grip and swung it, the curved, pointed raven’s beak hooking securely under the guard of the sword. A firm yank quickly tore the weapon free of Edmund’s gauntlets, and sent the sword flinging a few meters off to the side. Another hard shield bash finally knocked him onto his back. He started to try and right himself, and promptly stopped when he saw, and heard, the head of the war hammer come to rest almost delicately against the top of his helmet.

It was more theatrics, more symbolic, than anything. Nicklaus would never make the swing; he didn’t want to wind up giving his opponent a concussion, or worse, and there were still rules to be followed… including rules for accepting defeat with some measure of dignity intact.

“I yield,” Edmund hissed out.

Even Nicklaus, close as he was, could barely make the words out, despite most of the spectators having gone silent. “They can’t hear you… _Sir_ Edmund…”

There was a pause made even more uncomfortable by the relative quiet of the crowd. Edmund raised his arms slightly before repeating, “I yield!”, properly shouting the words this time.

The crowd went wild. The newlywed ‘royalty’ declared Nicklaus the victor.

It was background noise. He was focused on his rival, leaning forward, and offering a gauntlet to help him back up to his feet.

The presence of a large crowd and a desire to stay in the good graces of the event organizers were probably the only reasons Edmund accepted the hand up.

Nicklaus tightened his grip once the other man was upright, not letting him simply pull away quite yet.

“I never want to hear my grandfather’s name come out of your fucking mouth again, understand?”

Edmund just glared at him for a moment through his own helmet’s sight before giving a small, curt nod.

Nicklaus released his hold on Edmund and raised his weapon. It was more theatrics. It was what the crowd expected, eliciting a new round of cheering. It took some mental effort on Nicklaus’s part to make it look like he wasn’t in a hurry to leave the arena for the relative privacy of his tent.

Once he was inside, he quickly loosened his chin strap so he could remove his helmet, setting it on a small table off to the side.

“Hey, nice job.” Kurt offered a cold bottle of water, which Nicklaus took with a small nod in thanks. “You really rung his bell a few times.”

Nicklaus hummed quietly, downing nearly half the bottle of water in one go. “I suppose I did.”

Then, Kurt took a proper look at the helmet. “Holy shit.” He walked up and touched the broken tip of the sword sticking out of the sight. “Looks like you lucked out, yikes. I’ll go talk to the nearest smith, see if we can borrow some pliers to pull it out.”

It took a bit of a delicate touch to remove the broken piece of steel without damaging the helmet it had been wedged into. Fortunately, the job was rather quick, and a little while later Nicklaus was putting the helmet back on for his third bout of the day.

‘Lady’ Valerie Dönitz had just joined the festival that year. The worst mistake Nicklaus had seen some other knights make was underestimating her. He wasn’t going to make that mistake. He’d overheard Valerie (rightly) complaining to her squire as well on a couple of occasions about other participants going easy on her because she was a woman. Nicklaus wasn’t going to make that mistake, either.

The round went on longer than the last, and Niklaus was holding his own, certainly better than Valerie’s previous opponents had. She was hard to hit, though – small and fast. She’d also managed to strike his breastplate hard enough with her mace to knock the wind out of him. Before he could recover, Valerie swung her mace up and hit the bevor of his helmet, knocking the whole helm slightly upward and out of place.

The next swing… well, the weapon impacted Nicklaus’s visor – hard. There was the loud clang of metal striking metal. Part of Nicklaus’s slightly off-kilter helmet struck the bridge of his nose, and he heard a wet crack, as well.

Nicklaus stumbled and fell back, and he felt, and tasted, the blood that had been running down to his chin starting to trickle down the back of his throat, instead. The bridge of his nose was throbbing.

Needless to say, the royalty quickly called the match.

Nicklaus managed to right himself, only stumbling a little as he quickly started toward the EMTs present for the event. Better to go to them, off to the side and more discreet, than have them run out onto the field. Nicklaus really didn’t want to have his visor lifted in front of all of the spectators, and not just because he wanted to avoid them seeing what a mess his face probably was.

The EMTs (once they had ascertained that he wasn’t showing signs of any brain damage and was safe to walk on his own) promptly led him to the large ‘hospital tent’ and sat him down. They went to fetch a third EMT, one that Nicklaus saw from time to time at the hospital… and that he remembered trying to assess his mental state and staunch the bleeding after his uncle had shot him.

“Oh, uh…” Nicklaus cleared his throat, and wound up having to swallow a mouthful of blood. “Hi, Katja.”

Katja gave a small, warm chuckle. “Glad to see you’re a lot more lucid this time. We have to stop meeting like this, Doctor Fleischer. Helmet, please.”

Nicklaus hesitated for a moment, but ultimately gave a little nod. He removed his gauntlets so he could undo his chin strap, lifting his helmet up and off and setting it next to him on the cot.

Katja turned to grab something off of a nearby supply table – a device that looked like someone had married together a smartphone and a handheld retail barcode scanner.

“Oh, you got some of the handheld units.” Nicklaus gave a nod in thanks when one of the other EMTs offered him a cool, damp, clean cloth. It didn’t stay clean for long, quickly stained red. “Did I miss any?”

Katja took a brief pause from booting up the device to tap the tip of her finger lightly against one side of her chin.

Nicklaus made another pass with the cloth over his own chin.

“Now you’ve got it.” Katja nodded. “All right, try not to move, this should only take a few seconds.” She tilted the scanner and switched it on, a thin, horizontal, bright blue line about ten centimeters long appearing about level with Nicklaus’s brows. With a steady hand, Katja swept the blue guide light downward, stopping when she reached his chin. The guide light switched off, and she looked at the 3D image loading on the screen.

“Yeah, EMTs all around the city are getting them. They’re pretty much standard equipment in ambulances, now.” Katja frowned slightly as she continued looking over the screen. “I mean, obviously they can’t do a full body scan all at once like the full-size units at the hospital. And I’d have to hold it steady and let it scan one spot for like ten or fifteen seconds for the sensor signals to penetrate more than three centimeters or so. Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about that.”

Nicklaus looked over the screen as Katja turned the scanner around to show him. The bone that made up the bridge of his nose was… it was bruised, but-

“No fractures or loose teeth,” Katja stated. “Not even a hairline. That must be a damn good helmet.”

Yes, it was a good helmet, but Valerie’s well-aimed swing had knocked it a little out of place. And the following blow… Nicklaus was positive he’d heard the sound of bone cracking. His nose had stopped bleeding a bit before the EMTs had sat him down, though, and the pain was still borderline eyewatering, but it had lessened significantly since the initial injury.

When Nicklaus lifted his gaze from the screen, he saw that Katja was leaning halfway through the tent flap, talking to someone outside. She pulled herself back into the tent.

“Doctor Fleischer, there’s a young lady in plate armor who wants to speak with you?”

Nicklaus didn’t hesitate before nodding. “Uh… sure, that’s fine.

Katja nodded and pulled the tent flap completely open.

Valerie Dönitz damn near barreled into the place, her shield on her back, helmet (and Nicklaus wondered how she managed to stuff all of her curled, fiery red hair into it) under one arm, and mace hanging at her side from a strap around her waist. She quickly came to stand in front of the other ‘knight’.

“Oh my God, Nicklaus, I am so sorry.” She sounded beside herself. “I was aiming for your left pauldron, and I think you turned and ducked some, and I couldn’t stop the swing in time. Are you hurt? Is it serious?”

Nicklaus raised a hand to lightly touch the bridge of his nose. He sucked in a little hiss, the light pressure resulting in a sharp sting. He still managed to give Valerie a small, reassuring smile. “Nothing’s broken – just bruised. I’ll be fine. Congrats on the win, too, you’ve come quite a long way since the start of the festival.” And for being so young. She was twenty-two – the youngest of any of the current batch of knights, and one of only two women. “Keep it up and you might win the combat tournament. Hell, keep practicing and join us again next time, too, you’re a natural.”

Valerie looked… well, relieved… and then a little flustered. “Thanks. Though, I’ll admit, I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to match up with Edmund.” Her expression pulled into a mischievous grin. “Glad that someone finally put him in his proper place, though. Are you still going to joust later?”

That was a good question. Nicklaus handed the scanner back to Katja. “What do you think? Good to joust in a couple of hours?”

Katja sighed softly, seeming to mull it over for a moment. “Sure. I mean, if you want. Your head and neck seem fine, and you lucked out and got away with a bruise.” She smiled faintly. “Joust away.”

At least Nicklaus had a couple hours of downtime – enough to take off the plate and mail layers of his armor (a gambeson was much more comfortable to wear for any real length of time), get something to eat, rest for a bit, and at least try to tidy up his hair.

It always felt a little weird, having his hair grown out for the event – enough to halfway cover his ears and the back of his neck. A lot of the other male participants grew their hair out considerably longer. A lot of the other male participants had beards, too. Nicklaus kept his face clean-shaven. It was a little less historically accurate, but he was given a pass because of his job; for a surgeon, having any real amount of facial hair meant extra steps scrubbing up and extra precautions in the OR. It was an unnecessary pain.

Once Nicklaus’s hair was back in order, he glanced slightly downward at his reflection in the small mirror. Nearly two hours had passed since helmet had struck face, and now there was only a mostly faded bruise on the bridge of his nose. From a distance, it probably wouldn’t be visible at all.

“Hey, it’s me,” Kurt announced himself before stepping into the tent, carrying a small cooler no doubt filled with a few more bottles of water. He paused and arched a brow when Nicklaus turned to look in his direction. “You uh… look pretty good for someone who ate a mace earlier this afternoon.”

Nicklaus couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at the wording. “Yeah, well, really good helmet,” he nodded. “I mean, you did miss the gouts of blood, but I think that was exacerbated by how dry it’s been the last few weeks.”

He stood up to put his mail back on. By that point in the festival, he and Kurt had a routine down, and getting the actual plate armor fastened on properly only took a few minutes. Some of the plating was switched out – the left pauldron replaced with one that had a curved, reinforced Brechschild attached to serve as a target.

Jousting had a lot more flair to it than the melee combat did – there was a lot more ceremony, and a lot more color. All of the participants lined up in front of the nobles. All of the horses wore armor as well as their riders, including the huge black Percheron Nicklaus was sitting on. Hanging down from under each horse’s barding were banners and flowing blankets with colors and images usually tied to some of the rider’s family heraldry. Nicklaus had taken up the ones that his grandfather had used for the wedding procession and jousting – red and gold with a stylized white wolf.

Some of the event’s ‘knights’ only participated in melee combat, some only in jousting, some in both. There were definitely fewer in jousting, though; not everyone had access to a proper horse or the training to ride one.

Nicklaus had heard from more than one person that Edmund didn’t joust because every horse he mounted up on immediately tried to scrape him off on the nearest tree or post. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t find the mental image rather amusing.

The first order of business was supposed to be ‘a show of precision and gentility’ – spearing a lance through a metal ring hanging from a ribbon while at full gallop. Nicklaus had always found that part fairly easy. It was sort of like aiming down the sights of a hunting rifle, granted, with quite a lot more jostling.

The jousting part was a lot more difficult. Nicklaus had managed to score his first tournament win the previous Sunday, but he chalked that up to winding up in matches that were at least slightly favorable. He wasn’t surprised or even really disappointed when this round didn’t go as well. Third place wasn’t at all terrible, but, being completely unseated for the first time was an entirely different story.

Sturm was a very even-tempered, well-trained mount, but he was still eleven hundred kilos of horse, not counting his barding. At full charge, Nicklaus was surprised, impressed, and admittedly rather relieved that Sturm only dragged him about three meters before skidding to a complete halt.

While Nicklaus waited a moment for his ‘squire’ to help free his stuck boot from the right stirrup, he happened to glance at the spectator stands.

The photographer from the wedding procession and combat matches was still there. That much wasn’t really unusual. What was unusual was the fact that he still looked to be taking photos while wearing his sunglasses. It wasn’t supposed to rain, but it was starting to wear on into the evening, and the sky had grown more overcast.

Nicklaus almost jumped slightly when he felt his right leg drop free of the stirrup, his heel promptly hitting the ground. At least he could stand back up, now – though he was probably going to be cleaning mud off of his armor when he got home with it. “Thank you.” He gave the younger man a little nod before glancing back to the spectator stands.

The photographer was gone.

“Huh.” Nicklaus frowned slightly, not that anyone would see it with his visor closed. “He was right there a second ago…”

“Do what, now?” The both of them having bowed out of the tournament, Kurt was helping lead the horse back to the event stables.

“Oh, uh… nothing. I thought I saw someone.”

The sun had almost set by the time Nicklaus had made it back to his tent, having removed and packed up all of his horse’s tack and barding. He’d hung an LED lantern up as a decent light source. It was far from historically accurate, but it was much brighter and safer than an oil lamp or candles, and the general public wasn’t usually allowed in and around the prep tents. The knights were second only to the participants playing the newlywed duke and princess as targets of overenthusiastic tourists with lots of questions, and the royals didn’t exactly have to endure the same level of exertion over the course of the day. The general public may have largely been barred from the area, but…

“Hey, it’s me.”

Nicklaus breathed out a sigh of relief as he removed the weight of the Brechschild from his left shoulder. “Come in.”

Kurt leaned in through the tent flap. “There’s some uh… French reporter or photographer or something that wants to know if he can talk with you for a minute? He’s got a press pass.”

Nicklaus thought it over for a moment. Kurt had, in fairness, proven over the course of the event to be exceptionally good at sort of ‘vetting’ press pass holders, and politely deflecting away anyone that seemed a bit too pushy or slightly less than legitimate. He gave a little nod in the affirmative.

“Oh!” Kurt stepped completely into the tent. “Hey, before I go help my sisters pack up and head out, I wanted to thank you again, this was a lot of fun. I mean, it was also exhausting, but it was a lot of fun.”

“I’ll give you that on both counts.” Nicklaus smiled faintly, extending a hand. “Come back again in four years, if you’re still around.” He had taken his gauntlets off to start removing the rest of his armor. Fortunately, this wasn’t the first time he and Kurt had shaken hands, and he’d since mostly gotten used to the younger man’s ‘echo’, complete with the old fracture in his left tibia. Given how well it had healed, he could only assume that the injury had been sustained at quite a young age, and whatever doctor had splinted it up had done a damn good job.

Kurt was practically beaming. “Sounds great. I’ll let French guy know he can come in.”

There was some muffled chatter from outside the tent, a little bit of what sounded like light-hearted laughter. ‘French guy’ at least had the courtesy to announce himself and wait for an okay to step into the tent.

Nicklaus wouldn’t have claimed that his accent was very convincing, but he was at least confident in his fluency in French. “ _Bonsoir, mon_ -” He froze. It was the long-legged photographer with the sunglasses, still wearing said sunglasses, and, this close up Nicklaus could see not only that the metal side shields were decorated with swirls of silver filigree, but the lenses really were black-out dark.

“ _Ah, guten abend! Wie geht es ihnen_?”

Okay, language definitely wasn’t going to be an issue. If it wasn’t for the information on the press pass clipped to the photographer’s shirt (really, ‘Maurice Reynard’ was about as French as a name could get), Nicklaus would have guessed from his impeccable fluency and accent that the man was from Berlin.

“I’m… good, thank you. Yourself?” Nicklaus gestured to a small, padded bench an arm’s length away, probably the most comfortable spot in the tent.

Maurice gave a little nod in thanks before sitting down, and had apparently noticed the attention being directed at his eyewear. “Good. Sorry about the sunglasses,” he remarked with a small, apologetic smile. “Finally broke down and went in for Lasik, it’s only been a couple of days, so…”

“Ah. I see. Uh… no pun intended.” Nicklaus was relieved to see that the awkward little verbal gaffe seemed to be taken in good humor. He reached up to the LED lantern, turning the brightness down some from its highest setting – still no issue to see by, but considerably less of a strain on the eyes.

“ _Merci_ , much appreciated.” Maurice nodded, finally reaching up to remove his sunglasses, hooking them into his shirt pocket next to his press pass before lifting his gaze, again.

Nicklaus was immediately struck by the man’s eyes – a particularly stunning green that, were he not extremely well-acquainted with the concept of outliers, almost would have seemed slightly unnatural. He would have guessed colored contact lenses, but not a day or two after Lasik. They might have fit the man’s fashion sense, though; the well-matched outfit that somehow felt both casual and chic at the same time, the carefully styled hair (albeit with no apparent attempt to cover up the silver streaks along the temples), a pair of pearl stud earrings, and, of course, the decoration on the sunglasses. He didn’t really fit the typical profile of the usual event journalists.

“Um… out of curiosity, who do you work for?”

“Oh, I’m freelance,” Maurice quickly replied. “I usually do events more like uh… charity galas, art gallery openings, that sort of thing.” That immediately explained a lot. “I had an old colleague who lives in the States now drop my name to uh… ‘ _Trends in Living History’_. Newer publication, only been around a couple of years, but they seem to be doing quite well, and this sounded a lot more interesting and exciting, and a lot less stuffy, than going to the Louvre or some fancy campaign dinner yet again. I’m glad to say I have not been disappointed. The food and drink’s also a vast improvement.”

Nicklaus mulled that over for a moment. He’d had to go to a few ‘high-end’ job related events, and the starvation portion food usually tasted like it was worth about a tenth of the inevitably exorbitant cost. “That’s… completely fair…”

Maurice chuckled faintly. “Sounds like you’ve been there, done that?”

“A few times.” At this point, Nicklaus was worn out enough that he couldn’t be bothered to try and force some fake enthusiasm for said events.

Maurice hummed quietly, pulling a pen and small notepad out of a pocket on his camera bag. “Would you mind if I got a little information? It shouldn’t take too long – last ‘game day’, I know everyone’s probably tired. I just need enough so the publication can put a little blurb under the photos.”

“Um…” Maurice was right. It was the last ‘game day’ – the last Sunday – of the event, which meant that Nicklaus’s official involvement as a ‘knight’ was over for another four years. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that he was now only wearing his plate from the cuisses down, he’d removed and packed up his mail, and the armor he was still wearing mostly consisted of his quilted gambeson. Nicklaus could practically feel most of the confidence that came with getting to play ‘knight’ starting to slip away. He noticed Maurice briefly glance downward. His own gaze followed. He was fidgeting with his hands, and promptly forced them to stop before looking up, again. “What uh… kind of information are they looking for, exactly?”

Maurice, at least, didn’t bring any attention to the fidgeting, nor the likely quite noticeable change in demeanor. “Well, they have a particular interest in the diversity of reenactors’ ‘day jobs’, so to speak. I mean, especially if ‘reenactor’ isn’t their actual day job. Lot of variety in the knights’ section – a lawyer, couple of farmers, a baker, a postal worker, and we didn’t talk for very long, but, I’m pretty sure your neighbor,” Maurice pointed his pen in the general direction of Edmund’s tent, “is a professional asshole.”

Okay, Nicklaus hadn’t been expecting that, and couldn’t help but laugh at least a little bit. “I think he’s a rugby player or something.”

“And, yourself?” Maurice arched one almost unfairly perfectly shaped brow.

“Um… I’m a doctor.” Nicklaus quietly cleared his throat. “Well, a surgeon, really…”

Maurice seemed intrigued by that, like it wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. “That’s a rather interesting contrast. Any particular specialty?”

“Cardiothoracic surgery, but… technically also a sort of… sub-sub-specialty in pediatric cardiac surgery.” A little bit of the confidence was back – talking about work like this felt… well, natural. Even easy.

“Okay, this is just a personal aside,” Maurice admitted, “but I’ve been curious about it for quite some time, and now I’m sitting here talking to a professional in exactly this field.”

Now it was Nicklaus’s turn to arch a brow. “Go on.”

Maurice crossed one leg over the other, and, wow, he really did have long legs, and the black skinny slacks he was wearing only accentuated them. “Heart transplants.” He set the notebook in his lap for the moment. “How would you rank them in terms of difficulty, and how long do they usually take?”

“Oh, that’s like one of the easiest procedures I do.” The ‘knight’ confidence had gone, but, now Nicklaus didn’t even notice that he was slipping into the professional confidence of ‘doctor mode’. “I mean, it’s one of the easiest procedures any heart surgeon does.”

Maurice looked genuinely surprised. “Seriously? ‘Easy’?”

“I mean, it’s really fairly simple from a technical standpoint. All the major plumbing gets cut away from the heart and connected to a bypass machine, remove old heart, sew in donor heart or place artificial heart, disconnect blood vessels from bypass and secure to new heart, close everything up, procedure’s done.” Nicklaus shrugged. “I mean, it _is_ more complicated than that, but, generally speaking, those are the steps and it takes three… maybe four or five hours at the most, unless there are complications.”

Maurice frowned slightly, but it certainly didn’t seem to be in a put-off way. “Huh. I’ll be damned. So, what would you consider difficult, then?”

“Aortic dissection repair ranks up there. Biggest blood vessel in the body suffers a tear, that gets… exciting in the worst possible way.”

“Takes a long time?” Maurice appeared to be paying rapt attention.

“Um… six to eight hours or so if everything goes well?” Nicklaus frowned slightly. “Someone else might name another procedure as most difficult, but I had a patient that came in with an aortic dissection, some underlying conditions that proved extremely challenging to work around, and we had to deal with lots of complications as a result. Fortunately, they recovered and are doing quite well,” and Nicklaus looked relieved just thinking about that part. “But, when we finished the operation and stopped the clock, we’d been at it for twenty-two hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

Maurice actually grimaced a little bit at that. “I don’t suppose they let you have much recovery time.”

“Um…” Nicklaus chuckled quietly. “I got five hours of sleep and then started a week of what turned out to be, on average, ten to twelve hour shifts.”

“And you’ve been doing this for how long?”

“Got my license and certifications about seven years ago.”

“That’s dedication, sounds like a brutal schedule.”

“It can be, but…” Nicklaus trailed off, his expression briefly pulling into a small, slightly sad smile. It was hard to talk about work without thinking of his grandfather, at least a little. “But, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

Eventually, the two were interrupted by the muffled sound of Chopin playing from the small suitcase containing Nicklaus’s ‘civvie’ clothes.

“I… sorry, hold on.” Nicklaus quickly turned the number wheels on the combination locks so he could open the suitcase. “Where is…” He fumbled around for his phone, and nearly dropped it after he got his hands on it. “Shit…” he hissed under his breath, just managing to catch the device before it hit the ground, though the heavy-duty case it was in would have protected it from any damage.

Nicklaus breathed a sigh of relief – there was a message from his mother, not from work. “Forgot I was on vacation for the rest of the week.” And, his pager would have gone off. He did take a quick second to glance at Tilly’s message, though: ‘It’s getting late. Do you need help packing up before Adam and I trailer Sturm and head home?’

Getting late? Nicklaus looked to the time at the top of his phone screen, and nearly dropped the damn thing, again. He and Maurice had been talking for nearly an hour and a half.

It sure as hell hadn’t felt that long, and Nicklaus, outside of work, at least, wasn’t exactly the most at ease talking with strangers. Maurice seemed to be supremely talented with conversation, though, Nicklaus would give him that – any time a subject had started to get even slightly uncomfortable Maurice would, seemingly effortlessly, redirect things. Nicklaus also quite suddenly realized that the conversation had, several times, ended up drifting away from the event and to more personal matters – casual, but still personal… though Maurice had always stopped writing when it did.

“I’m sorry, this was supposed to be like a quick fifteen minute ‘interview’, wasn’t it?” Maurice offered a small, apologetic smile. He sighed softly. “What can I say? You’re easy to talk with, and now I’ve kept you late.” He reached into his camera bag and pulled out a black business card.

Nicklaus took the offered card, turning it slightly in his hand. ‘SLY PHOTOGRAPHIE’, the ‘S’ made of what looked like a stylized fox (fitting, given the man’s last name) was embossed on the card in reflective silver leaf. There was a phone number and business email address, also embossed in silver leaf, on the other side.

“Give me a week to finish up the event and do any touching up that needs to be done, then shoot me an email,” Maurice nodded. “Crowd shots are crowd shots, but I’ve got some photos that are centered on individuals. I try to run those by people before I send them off for publication.”

“It’s a public event. You don’t need model releases or anything.” Nicklaus shrugged, though he slipped the card into his suitcase, anyway.

“I just consider it a courtesy.” Maurice shrugged in return, putting his pen and notepad away before closing up his camera bag and standing up. “I should let you get out of here and get some sleep. Thank you for your rather generous time.” He extended a hand.

Nicklaus, admittedly, was momentarily distracted as the Frenchman stood up because, the skinny slacks he was wearing seemed purposely chosen to do just that. “Oh, uh… you’re welcome, it’s… not that big a deal, I’ve wound up staying here later a couple of times. Have fun at the rest of the festival.” He reached for Maurice’s offered hand, silently bracing himself for the shock of an unfamiliar ‘echo’. He took the other man’s hand to shake, and there was…

…there was…

…there was _nothing_ …

That wasn’t possible, was it? Of course, the cadavers Nicklaus had worked with in medical school were a blank, but there hadn’t been a single instance he could remember – not since he was eleven years old – of making close physical contact with another living human being and getting _nothing_.

Nicklaus realized he was staring

Maurice, who had been so affable from the first ‘hello’, was now wearing a slightly guarded expression, only just enough to notice. Then, the congenial smile was right back on his face.

“ _Bonne soirée, docteur_.” Maurice gave a small, polite nod before breaking off the handshake, shouldering his camera bag, and slipping almost too quietly out of the tent.

Nicklaus stared at his own hand for a moment before quickly standing up, practically bursting out of the tent. “Wait! I…”

Maurice was gone, like he’d simply vanished into the dark.

For the next week, it was like Nicklaus was seeing a phantom. Each afternoon, as things started to wind down, he would come to the Old Town dressed in ‘civvies’ to help his parents pack some things up.

Inevitably, he would see Maurice, taking photos, or walking from one event to another. If Nicklaus looked for more than a couple of seconds, the Frenchman would vanish into the surrounding crowd, no matter how dense or sparse, like he’d never been there at all.

The last night of the festival was winding down. Nicklaus had helped his parents finish packing up their beer tent before heading for his car. Motor vehicles were _verboten_ in a good chunk of the Old Town during the festival, so it was a considerable walk down narrow, winding, brick-paved side streets and alleys.

Nicklaus usually didn’t mind. He liked the few moments of relative quiet and solitude. It was peaceful, and he’d never really felt unsafe in the Old Town, especially during the festival.

With his car finally in sight, he reached into his jacket pocket to press the key fob. The Mercedes chirped, and Nicklaus froze when its headlights blinked, illuminating another car parked a couple of meters in front of it. He pressed the key fob a second time, so he could get a better view.

It looked like a Lamborghini – matte black with purple accents. The windows were blacked out; too dark to see through from the outside, and almost certainly too dark to be legal.

Nicklaus felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He took a quick glance around but didn’t see anyone. He quickened his pace as he walked toward the car, accompanied only by the sound of his shoes on the brick paving and his heart pounding in his ears.

As he closed the distance to his car, he could hear another set of footsteps on the bricks, then a second, then a third, distant but running, and definitely in his direction. He nearly jumped out of his skin as someone seized his wrist just before he could grab the handle of his car door. The other footsteps sounded like they were nearly a block away, though (albeit closing fast). How could someone else have been right next to him without him knowing?

Nicklaus turned his head to try and see who had grabbed him – tried to yank his wrist free. The person standing next to him might as well have been made of shadow; a pitch-black figure with no features, just a silhouette, and one that Nicklaus couldn’t seem to pull free from, despite the figure’s slighter build.

Not only could Nicklaus not wrest his arm free, he was being pulled by the dark figure toward the passenger side of the Lamborghini, though they seemed to be having at least a little bit of trouble. There was a click, and the scissor doors opened.

“Get in. You need to get in _right now_.” The voice was a bit raspy, but familiar, and demanding, yes, but far more worried than threatening.

Nicklaus heard what he thought was a car backfiring – until he felt a sharp, burning, terrifyingly familiar pain explode through his left shoulder. He’d barely managed to cry out when the dark figure bodily shoved him into the passenger seat and closed the door behind.

Maurice was suddenly just… _there_ … sitting in the driver’s seat, leaning over to hurriedly secure the passenger side racing harness over Nicklaus.

Nicklaus started to protest, and fell silent when he saw the half dozen bullet holes in the other man’s back. Blood stained the fabric around the holes in his shirt, but not nearly as much as there should have been.

Maurice leaned back into his own seat. There was what looked like a sharpened wooden spike sticking out of his own left shoulder. He wrapped his fingers around it.

“You really shouldn’t pull that-”

“Don’t have time,” Maurice cut him off, yanking the spike free with a wet squelching sound and tossing it behind his seat. He pressed the start button on the center console, and the engine roared to life.

Nicklaus glanced in the side mirror to see a pair of headlights rushing up behind them. “They’re going to hit us!”

“No, they aren’t.” Maurice slammed the accelerator down. The engine roared again as they shot forward.

The inertia was more than enough to practically glue Nicklaus back against the seat. Between the relative lack of streetlights in the immediate area, the darkened windows, and the headlights being off… “I can’t see a fucking thing,” Nicklaus stammered out, unable to notice or care that he sounded rather panicked.

“I can see perfectly fine, and you’re not the one driving,” Maurice promptly rebutted.

Nicklaus wasn’t sure how, but Maurice apparently _could_ see perfectly fine, because despite how dark it was on the side streets, and how fast they were going, the man was skidding around corners, dodging the occasional vehicle, and shooting down alleyways barely wide enough for them to clear like a professional stunt driver working in broad daylight on a set they were intimately familiar with.

It was a narrow alleyway that finally tangled up their pursuers. Their vehicle lost traction cornering into the opening, and promptly became wedged between two buildings.

“Amateurs…” Maurice muttered under his breath. He switched his headlights on and slowed down some, merging into busy city traffic as though they hadn’t just been in a car chase. He leaned across the center console to open the glove compartment, reaching over an extremely prohibited suppressed pistol to grab a small first aid kit, setting it in his unwitting passenger’s lap.

He then fell into a sudden coughing fit, only just maintaining the proper spacing with the cars in front of and behind him. He hacked out… something… and gave a hard swallow, holding up a small object. The object, much like the pain in Nicklaus’s shoulder, was terrifyingly familiar. It was a metal slug, peeled apart at the front and bent back, like the petals of some grotesque, blood-streaked flower.

“Fucking hollow points.” The rasp was gone from Maurice’s voice as he almost casually flicked the bullet back behind him to join the wooden stake. Now there were enough streetlamps for some light to filter in through the windows. Maurice’s face was deathly pale, and at the same time looked far too alive for that kind of pallor.

Nicklaus gritted his teeth, eyes watering as he pressed a thick wad of gauze from the first aid kit against the exit wound in the front of his shoulder.

Maurice sighed softly. “Well, the good news is, all things considered, you don’t seem to be bleeding too badly.” The demanding tone was gone – but the worry was very much still present. “The bad news is, I think the bullet broke your clavicle.”

That would certainly be in line with the excruciating pain. It was bad enough that even without serious blood loss Nicklaus was feeling lightheaded, and even a little ill. He realized he was trembling, the adrenaline rush starting to fade, which only made the pain worse. He only just noticed a light touch against his arm, and the entire world seemed to spin as he raised his head to look toward Maurice.

There was an apologetic, almost guilty look on the man’s face. Nicklaus wasn’t really able to focus much on it, though. Instead, he found himself looking directly into the stunning green of his eyes. “I think…” Maurice’s voice was sharp and clear, and there was a captivating quality to it that hadn’t been there, before.

Every bit of background noise evaporated like so much fog in the sun. “I think you should get some rest.”

Nicklaus couldn’t look away from those green eyes – didn’t _want_ to. And, the voice echoed in his head, pushing away every mental attempt at an objection until Nicklaus was sure that he had thought of the idea, himself. He should get some rest. He’d feel better after some rest, and he wouldn’t be able to feel the pain in his shoulder if he was asleep.

That… sounded rather nice…

Nicklaus’s shoulder was sore, but at least he was lying down, and whatever he was lying on felt soft, and warm, and more comfortable than it had any right to be. It took some effort, but he pried his eyes open, trying to move as little as possible as he took a bleary glance around.

He was in bed – not his bed, a much bigger, much nicer bed with a lot more pillows. He tentatively raised his right hand to touch his left shoulder and winced. It hurt, but not nearly as much as it had before… before he’d passed out? No. Fallen asleep.

Nicklaus looked down and realized his shirt was missing. There was fresh gauze against his left shoulder (and some rather deep, ugly bruising around it), held in place by bandaging that had been used to make a figure-of-eight splint. He couldn’t have done that, himself, and the main reason he could think of for needing a figure-of-eight splint was a mid-clavicle fracture.

The bullet.

He’d been shot.

Nicklaus clenched his jaw, biting back a hiss of pain as he sat up a little bit. Every window seemed to be covered by closed black-out curtains. The room was dimly lit (though enough to see by, at least) by a lamp on the nightstand.

There was someone else in the room, curled up on a very plush-looking couch next to the bed – Maurice.

The man had changed shirts before collapsing on the couch, apparently, and… and he didn’t look like he was breathing.

“Maurice..?” Nicklaus sat up straighter, gritting his teeth and trying to ignore the throbbing in his shoulder. “ _Maurice_?” There was a faint edge of panic in his voice, now. He cautiously extended his uninjured right arm, lightly touching the other man’s shoulder. Again, there was no echo… nothing.

Maurice sucked in a quick breath, prying one eye open a little. “What is it?” He sounded exhausted, and his skin tone somehow looked a bit healthier, but he hadn’t been breathing, and…

“Nothing… sorry.” Nicklaus pulled his hand back. He had about a million and one questions, but… “You weren’t breathing, I just…” He exhaled a shaky sigh.

“That’s normal.” Maurice closed his eye, again. “M’fine. Wake me up if there’s an emergency, just… don’t open the curtains in here, please.”

Nicklaus hesitated a moment before giving a little nod. “Yeah… sure…” He found himself staring, watching as Maurice relaxed, each breath coming slower than the last until they finally stopped altogether. He wasn’t dead, though… somehow. His skin tone didn’t change. He even moved slightly every now and again, but, barring that, he was almost eerily still.

Nicklaus stayed there for a little while longer – staring, watching, not sure what he was expecting to see. Nothing changed, though. He finally gave up on his apparently fruitless vigil and slipped out of bed and to the bathroom, trying not to make too much noise as he closed the door before turning the light on.

The bathroom was… well, it was enormous, and it was somehow opulent without quite being gaudy. There was a lot of nice stone tiling and polished stone countertops, a huge walk-in shower, a very roomy-looking bath, and some tasteful décor. There was also a large first aid bag on the floor next to the sink – the kind that EMTs usually carried.

Nicklaus eyed it for a moment before turning the sink on, letting the water warm just a little bit before he rinsed off his face, glad that he didn’t have his longer hair from the festival to get in the way anymore. He shut the water off and dried his hands, careful not to move the left too much.

Nicklaus turned his back to the large mirror over the sink. It was an awkward and painful stretch, but he managed to pull a thick, folded gauze pad out from between the makeshift bandage splint and the back of his left shoulder. There was a spot of blood on the gauze, but it wasn’t huge, and it hadn’t soaked through, which meant it had probably been switched out for fresh dressings at least twice.

He looked back at the mirror as he hooked a thumb into the bandaging, pulling it to one side so he could see where the bullet had entered. There was deep bruising, but no longer an open wound. He let the bandage slide back into place before moving to toss the gauze pad, no longer needed, into the trash.

Nicklaus stopped and stared for a moment. There were a few other, bloodier gauze pads (probably earlier dressings), but what really caught his attention were two units of synthetic blood – or, rather, the IV bags that would have contained synthetic blood. The gauze in the trash was bloody, but not so blood-soaked as to indicate that he’d have needed a transfusion. There was also the lack of other disposable IV equipment in the trash. There was no tubing, no needles, not even a cannula. He reached in to pull out one of the bags, looking the labels over to make sure.

It was definitely synthetic blood. Or, it had been. It hadn’t been used for a transfusion, though. It even looked like a knife or pair of scissors had been used to cleanly cut off a corner of the bag. The other bag was the same.

Nicklaus frowned, tossing the bags back in the trash. He washed and dried his hands before carefully checking the front of his left shoulder. He slid the bandage to one side, and winced as he removed the gauze pad. It was soaked with blood, but not quite all the way through. The exit wound was scabbed over, and removing the dressing had pulled at things enough that a few drops of fresh blood oozed out.

Nicklaus sighed and reached into the first aid bag, removing some fresh gauze, jaw tensing as he pressed it to the front of his shoulder and moved the bandaging back into place.

He shut the light off and opened the door, trying once again to be as quiet as he could as he slipped out of the bedroom. The living area he’d stepped into was, much like the bedroom and bathroom, enormous. There was even a black baby grand piano off in a corner. Also much like the bedroom, though, black-out curtains covered every window. At least the lights had been left on, and were plenty bright to see by.

Nicklaus did make his way over to a window, though, pulling one of the curtains aside enough that he could see out. He almost winced at how bright it was before he looked around the cityscape. It took a moment, but he recognized several landmarks, and finally teased out where he was – the most expensive hotel in Landshut. And in the top floor penthouse, no less. These were really high-dollar digs for a ‘freelance photographer’.

He closed the curtain and glanced at a sleek, minimalist digital clock on an end table. There were about two hours of sunlight left. Based on that, and the date, he’d been here for almost twenty hours. That would explain how much his through-and-through had healed. He was glad that no major blood vessels, against all odds, had been damaged.

Nicklaus sat down on one of the large, cushy couches in the living room. It wasn’t quite as comfortable as the bed had been, but it was still too much for him to resist lying down. There was a chill in the air, though, and he grabbed a blanket draped over the back of the couch, wrapping it around his shoulders before lying down.

He still had a million and one questions floating in his head. Nicklaus was having trouble focusing on any single one at a time, though. There were too many. It was too much. He was too tired. He only managed to put up a token effort of resistance before drifting back into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

Nicklaus felt something touch his left arm. He stirred slightly but couldn’t really bring himself to move much more than that.

The something touched his left arm again, this time lower down, and gave a gentle shake.

That was enough to make Nicklaus pry his eyes open. The room he was in looked less familiar the more his vision cleared, and he finally sat bolt upright. His right hand immediately went to his left shoulder as he cringed. He exhaled a trembling sigh as he carefully ran his thumb over his left clavicle. It was still… well, ‘tender’, to put it lightly, but the bone had mended, and without so much as a bump or divot or any sign it had ever been broken at all.

“Sleep okay?”

Nicklaus jumped slightly, sucking in a sort, sharp gasp before turning his gaze to the direction of the voice.

The lights had been turned up some, enough that seeing Maurice wasn’t difficult. He had what looked like a box of Chinese takeout in each hand, along with two sets of chopsticks. He set them both on the glass top coffee table, next to a glass of ice water he must have set there earlier.

“I... don’t know. Fine, I guess?” He sounded tired, and he was sure he _looked_ just as tired, as well.

Maurice started to sit on the couch next to Nicklaus but stopped himself, opting to sit in a nearby recliner, instead. “Good. Uh… I figured you’d probably be hungry… You’ve been out for like twenty-six hours.”

Nicklaus stared for a moment at the takeout box that had been set in front of him. He recognized the patterning and name decorating the container. He might have enjoyed cooking, himself, but there was no mistaking the boxes from his favorite Chinese takeout place in the city.

He hesitated, just staring at the box for a few seconds before opening it; General Tso’s chicken with lo mein and two egg rolls. One of his favorite orders from his favorite Chinese takeout place. It had to be a lucky guess, right?

“Um… thank you…” Nicklaus’s left arm was sore, but the burning, throbbing pain was gone. Thankfully, he was right-handed, which made using the chopsticks significantly easier. He _was_ hungry, and it felt like he was staring at the empty bottom of the takeout box entirely too soon. He looked to Maurice, who was mostly using his chopsticks to sort of poke around at his half-finished food.

“This is um…” Nicklaus picked up the empty box in front of him, tilting it slightly toward Maurice before setting it back down on the table. “This is one of my favorite takeout places. Lucky guess.”

After an uncomfortably long silence, Nicklaus lifted his gaze to actually look to the other man.

Maurice, to the contrary, didn’t make eye contact, though he at least finally stuck his chopsticks into his food and left them there. “It wasn’t a guess…”

Nicklaus frowned slightly, not sure if he was more confused, or, honestly, a little suspicious. “What do you mean?”

There was another period of silence. Maurice glanced to Nicklaus, but only for a second. “We uh… we went on sort of a date three nights ago…”

“A date..?” Nicklaus’s frown deepened, his expression and tone both more than a little incredulous. “But, I don’t… We never…”

Maurice sighed, leaning back in his chair, and staring up at the ceiling, giving the other man another brief glance. “We ran into each other at the festival, again. A couple of times, actually. We talked for a while.” He paused, looking to Nicklaus again, as though to gauge his reaction. All he got in return, though, were disbelief and confusion. “Three nights ago, I asked if you’d had the chance to have supper yet, you said ‘no’. I asked you if you wanted to grab some takeout… maybe come back to my hotel room and just… watch a movie or something – no pressure, and nothing personal if you decided to just get up and leave.”

Maurice heaved another shaky sigh. “But… you didn’t get up and leave. You stayed through the movie. And for a second one. It was very late and you fell asleep about halfway through it, right there on that couch.”

“But, three nights ago, I…” Nicklaus practically stammered, “my parents had some new drinks at their beer tent from the brewer they work with. I tried a few, my uh…” he paused, honestly a little embarrassed to admit it, “my mother was worried maybe I’d had a little too much and drove me home.”

“That’s what I told you happened,” Maurice stated, finally turning to actually look at Nicklaus. “We ordered some wine from room service. You wound up getting _quite_ chatty,” not that Maurice sounded as though he was particularly bothered by that part.

Nicklaus quickly ran the numbers in his head. He wasn’t exactly naturally extroverted, and, given his body mass… “I don’t like red wine.”

“It was a Zinfandel.”

Nicklaus awkwardly chewed a bit at his lower lip. “Ah. That would uh… yeah, that would explain it.” He frowned again, shifting slightly on the couch as he felt his face heat. “Did… did we-”

“Oh, heavens, no!” Maurice laughed softly. “I mean don’t get me wrong, I certainly wouldn’t have minded, but you’d gone through five glasses of wine, and I wasn’t about to just…” he trailed off, giving a little wave of one hand. His tone was almost a little morose as he continued. “I let you get some sleep and drove you home a little before sunup.”

“Look, five glasses isn’t… it isn’t _nothing_.” There was an edge of panic in Nicklaus’s voice, now, not quite covered up by confusion, and maybe a touch of anger, “but I wouldn’t have just forgotten an _entire evening_!”

Maurice sighed softly once more. “Like I said, I made you forget.”

Nicklaus knew that the question he should have been asking was ‘how?’ What ended up coming out, though, was, “ _Why_!?”

Maurice removed his phone from his pocket, unlocking it and tapping on it, scrolling through a few things, before offering it to Nicklaus. “Because… after you fell asleep, I saw this…”

Reaching to take the phone, Nicklaus realized his hands were shaking a little bit. It took a little effort, but he forced them to steady, so he could actually look at what was on the screen. He recognized the website header – it was one of Landshut’s newspapers. What was much more shocking was the headline: ‘ _Fifth Body Found in Connection with Month-Long ‘Vampire Slayer’ Spree._ ’

Nicklaus started scrolling through the article, eyes darting over each line. Five victims, both sexes, various ages, the youngest being a girl, “Twelve years old…” Nicklaus didn’t realize he’d said it out loud, but he sounded about as horrified as he looked. A couple of the bodies had gunshot wounds – _all_ of them had been found with what looked like a wooden crossbow bolt, or some other form of sharpened wooden spike, through the heart.

The authorities hadn’t been able to obtain fingerprints, or a license plate number, or an identifying photo of any perpetrator. A few witnesses had given matching general descriptions of a vehicle, though; a large, newer model black SUV with darkly tinted windows.

“The car from before,” Nicklaus said, “the one that was chasing us…”

“…was found by the authorities two nights ago,” Maurice gave a little nod, “crashed in a narrow alleyway a few blocks away from the Old Town. It was wedged into place and damaged in such a manner that the three occupants could not get out, and they succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Nicklaus winced a little at that – just another reason he was glad his Mercedes was electric.

“Also found inside the vehicle,” Maurice continued, “three crossbows, about three dozen wooden stakes, seven pistols, one assault rifle, and several hundred rounds of ammunition.” He scoffed, rolling his eyes a bit. “Oh, and some garlic, crosses, and holy water.” He almost sounded a little insulted at that last part. “Pretty piss poor job, every single victim was human.”

Of course they were human. What else would they be? “And why would they have targeted me?” Nicklaus raised a hand, touching it to his chest, before looking to Maurice, “or _you_ , for that matter?”

Maurice hesitated. “There’s… a particular club in the city. All of the victims were people who frequented the club, or people closely associated with others who frequented the club. I’ve been there a few times since I got here a couple of weeks ago.” The guarded expression slipped a little bit again, allowing a hint of guilt to show through. “They apparently saw us talking at the festival a few times… I’m just glad that whoever had the crossbow in their hands wasn’t that great a shot, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get to you in time.”

Wasn’t a good shot? But, they’d hit him, there was- “There was a wooden spike in your shoulder… last night-” no, “a couple of nights ago.” Nicklaus felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, again. “You’d been shot in the back like six or seven times, how are you…”

Maurice gave a small, noncommittal shrug. “They finally blundered their way into what they were looking for.”

It almost sounded like some kind of deep confession, and the words… it was like they caused some sort of unseen veil to slip away. Nicklaus found himself looking at the other man’s green eyes, and there _was_ something different, something off, something he couldn’t quite pin down or explain. Maybe that green seemed a little too intense – a little too brilliant. Maybe it was the faint, almost magnetic pull Nicklaus felt looking into them. He started to protest, but…

“You were about to say that’s not possible, there’s no such thing as vampires.”

As soon as he started talking, Nicklaus’s gaze fixed on the other man’s mouth. There were quick flashes of white as he spoke, flashes that he somehow hadn’t noticed before. “Yeah… I was about to say that…”

Maurice sighed and gritted his teeth, purposefully showing them while somehow managing to make it seem like a much more casual expression.

His canines were longer than they should have been, and they definitely looked much _sharper_ than they should have been. “I mean…” Nicklaus trailed off, “I mean, that could be like… a cosmetic thing…”

Maurice bit back another sigh as he stood up, pulling his shirt up and off. Barring a long, thin scar on the man’s left forearm, there didn’t look to be a mark on him. He even turned around once to show his back, which had a very noticeable lack of bullet holes in it. There weren’t even any bruises.

Nicklaus realized he was staring, again. “That doesn’t… that doesn’t mean… I mean, you can’t be- there aren’t…”

“And regular human beings don’t completely heal a broken nose in two hours,” the Frenchman promptly retorted.

“It wasn’t broken, it was-”

“It was _broken_ ,” Maurice practically hissed out, gritting his teeth slightly, again. “I heard the bone crack. You had blood _pouring down your face_.”

For the moment, that bit about having heard the bone crack flew past Nicklaus’s radar, but, “I had my visor shut, you couldn’t have seen the blood.”

“I could _smell it_ from clear across the field!”

His grandfather’s words about the Thule Society – about the potential danger of revealing anything… abnormal… echoed in Nicklaus’s head. He realized his heart was racing. He was trying not to panic. He managed to steady his breathing and even force a calm, even tone. “It wasn’t broken. It was bruised.”

Maurice suddenly had something in his hand, the reach into one of the pockets in his slacks so fast it had barely been a blur. He flicked the butterfly knife open with practiced grace and ease.

Light reflected over the surface of the sharpened blade as it opened. Nicklaus started to stand up, but the other man was too fast – faster than any human being had any right to be. He grabbed the bandaging where it wrapped around Nicklaus’s right shoulder, pulling it away from his skin, and sliced through it in one swift, fluid motion. The whole makeshift splint fell away, along with the gauze that had been pressed against the exit wound on the front of Nicklaus’s left shoulder. There was no hole there, anymore – nor was there even a scab, or a scar – just a light bruise. Within the hour, even that would be gone.

It had started when his uncle had shot him, and he tried not to think of the scars those two bullets _had_ left. Maybe it hadn’t been the gunshots themselves, not directly. Maybe it had been his heart ceasing to function properly. He had been defibrillated twice; once before the EMTs had loaded him into the helicopter, and again on the operating table. Regardless, Nicklaus knew he should be dead. He’d requested his medical records from Doctor Sommer, and she had produced them. The numbers didn’t add up. The volume of the transfusions he’d received was significantly lower than the volume of blood he’d lost, and yet, he had stabilized. Doctor Sommer had chalked it up to a potential clerical error, or the difficulty of measuring how much he had hemorrhaged before EMTs had arrived on-scene. The numbers still didn’t add up, and after that…

“Okay, fine, no broken nose, what about this?” Maurice pointed the balisong – thankfully closed back up – at the faded bruise.

Nicklaus had stood up at this point, and Maurice didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated – not by the fact that Nicklaus had over fifteen centimeters on him, nor by the substantial difference in muscle mass between them. Admittedly, Nicklaus didn’t really _feel_ very intimidating… not with the way he was stumbling over his words, again. “That’s… That’s just, I-”

“There was a hole blown clear through your shoulder, now it’s _gone_. _How_ is that possible!?”

“ _I don’t KNOW!_ ”

Nicklaus realized he had outright screamed the words – that he was painfully tense, that he was trembling slightly, breathing hard, had tears welling in his eyes.

The look of guilt was back on Maurice’s face, and it wasn’t just a hint this time – not just a flash of something that only barely showed through. He seemed downright deflated.

Nicklaus, on the other hand, felt like he was collapsing from the inside out. He fell back to the couch with his face in his hands.

Maurice quietly pocketed the folded balisong and sat down on the couch next to the blond, but not close enough that they were touching. He felt like he didn’t really have the right, at this point. He could smell the panic crushed into exhaustion. He could hear Nicklaus’s breath hitching, and his racing pulse was almost deafening. Maurice swallowed hard.

“ _Das tut mir leid_ … I shouldn’t have been so…” Aggressive. Pushy. Insensitive.

… _scared_ …

Almost a hundred and fifty years of flings, lovers, casual and close friends, confidants, and one-night stands lay scattered across continents and Maurice’s past and present – people he could get some companionship from and, if necessary, a meal. Most of them were long dead; claimed by war, accident, illness, or age. It was painful enough watching a close friend grow old and die. There was a reason he tried to keep at least some level of emotional distance; to not let anyone close to him get _too_ close.

He’d been so careful.

He’d finally failed.

Maurice started to reach out, hesitating a moment before letting his hand rest lightly on Nicklaus’s shoulder. He was practically dumbstruck when the other man shifted some to lean against him.

Maurice swallowed hard, again. “Three nights ago you… you told me about this ‘echo’… thing. When you touch people.” He kept his voice quiet and steady. “That night at the festival, when we shook hands you sort of just… froze and stared at me until I walked out.” Part of him was afraid to ask, but, “What did you see?” He paused, glancing to where the other man’s shoulder was pressed to his. “What _do_ you see?”

Nicklaus sniffled quietly, and couldn’t quite manage to really steady his voice.

“Nothing.”

Maurice found himself immediately trying to puzzle out why. He’d done some horrible things in the past. He’d tried to make up for them. Was that it? Had he failed at that, too? No. Logically, he knew the most likely answer: He and his kind balanced on a razor’s edge that separated living and dead.

“When you say ‘nothing’…”

“Nothing,” Nicklaus repeated with a hushed voice. “No breathing, no heartbeat, no muscle movement, _nothing_.” He sighed, and Maurice could finally feel some of the tension ease out of him “You’re so… quiet.” It would have been impossible for anyone paying attention, even without Maurice’s heightened senses, to interpret Nicklaus’s tone as anything but one of relief. Maurice slipped his arm around the blond’s broad shoulders, but Nicklaus leaned in closer on his own.

He didn’t deserve this

Neither of them did, in very different ways.

Maurice knew he was, deep down, no matter how well he managed to try and wall it in and pretend it wasn’t there, a literal monster – the not quite sated hunger stirring at the sound of the heartbeat next to him was proof enough of that. And Nicklaus was… well… _Nicklaus_.

“If you want, I could…” Maurice stopped, had to mentally wrestle with the selfish urge to just stay quiet – to make sure this lasted. He had to force out each word. “I could make you forget, again. You wouldn’t remember me past the interview in your tent. You’d have spent the last couple of nights getting some rest at home before you have to go back to work.”

Nicklaus had curled up in his lap at some point, and Maurice found himself lightly trailing his fingers through the soft blond hair that had been cut short since the end of the knights’ involvement in the festival.

“You could just go on with your life.”

There it was. A chance to escape…

…for both of them.

The silence that followed was… it was hard for Maurice not to physically tense up while he waited for something, anything.

“No…”

Maurice’s pulse was sluggish. A couple bags of synthetic blood weren’t enough to completely top him off, not after the injuries he’d healed. It still felt like his heart had stopped, though, if only for a second. He couldn’t have heard that right.

“What..?”

Nicklaus didn’t hesitate this time. He turned his head to look up at the Frenchman, his expression and his tone a mix of desperation, determination, and even defiance. “I said ‘ _no_ ’.”

Maybe it was knee-jerk fear – the mere prospect of having memories just… replaced.

Maurice jumped slightly and looked down again. Nicklaus had taken his free hand and was holding onto it as though for dear life.

“I don’t… want to forget you. I want to get to know you better, again. Maybe get some takeout… watch a movie or two…”

“Have a little too much wine?” Maurice added with a faint smile

“Yeah… maybe that, too.” Nicklaus chuckled weakly. “I um… I don’t think I’d have been willing to do that unless I really liked you.”

“I really like you, too…”

Nicklaus gave his hand a little squeeze. “Then… we’ll figure something out.”

Maurice swallowed hard, trying to stop his own breath from hitching a bit. He nodded. “Yeah…” He couldn’t bring himself to care that tears were welling in his eyes.

He cared that he finally felt safe.

He cared that he finally didn’t feel alone.

* * *

_Your bog standard Doctor Fleischer looking all clean cut and professional like 95% of the time, and... Nicklaus during the Landshut Wedding - the first time Maurice saw him, and the first photo he took of him. I swear the longer hair makes him look like 10 years younger, he's supposed to be like 38._

_Maurice Reynard. No, he hasn't dressed quite this fancy in any stories I've posted yet, but, rest assured, he has a fine selection of bespoke three-piece suits and you'd be hard-pressed to find one that doesn't incorporate purple in some fashion._

**Author's Note:**

> I try to screen through things multiple times before I post them, but I always miss stuff. Please feel free to contact me if you spot any typos so I can fix them. I might be slow to respond, but it is much appreciated!


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